SELECTED BIOGRAPHIES (Part 1) Religious Personalities from the Awakening Periods Tennent, Gilbert 1703 -- 1764 Protestant evangelist, born in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. He emigrated to America with his father about 1718 and entered the ministry in 1725. A fiery, persuasive preacher, he helped foment the religious revival known as the Great Awakening, during which he travelled through the northern colonies with English evangelist George Whitefield. His dismissive views on the pastorate and on the church as an institution provoked a schism among New Jersey Presbyterians in the 1740s. Mellowing in later years, when he served in Philadelphia, he helped to heal the breach he had largely created. Edwards, Jonathan 1703 -- 1758 Protestant clergyman, theologian; born in East Windsor, Conn. He entered Yale at age 13, graduated in 1720, and studied theology there for two years. He was a pastor in New York City briefly before returning to Yale as a tutor. In 1726 he became an assistant to his grandfather Solomon Stoddard as minister of the Northampton, Mass., Congregational Church; he succeeded Stoddard after his death in 1729. Imbued with an almost perversely stern Calvinist doctrine, he was a powerful preacher and is regarded as the greatest theologian of the extreme form of American Puritanism. His best-known sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," declared man's baseness and vividly described the conditions of damnation. In the early 1740s he helped inspire the religious revival ironically known as the Great Awakening. Dismissed from the Northampton pulpit in 1750 for overzealousness, he became a missionary to the Indian tribes around Stockbridge, Mass. In 1757 he was appointed president of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton), but died (from a smallpox inoculation) only a few weeks after taking office. Whitefield, George 1714 -- 1770 Protestant evangelist; born in Gloucester, England. An innkeeper's son, he entered Oxford in 1732, came under the influence of John Wesley, and turned to evangelism after an intense religious experience in 1735. A powerful preacher, he ran afoul of English ecclesiastical authorities and sailed for Georgia, U.S.A., in 1737 to assist the Wesleys in their mission there. In that and subsequent visits he helped touch off the Great Awakening religious revivial. He continued to evangelize in England and America until his death, which came at Newburyport, Mass., while he was on a preaching tour. Finney, Charles Grandison 1792 -- 1875 Protestant religious leader, educator; born in Warren, Conn. Raised on the verge of the frontier in Oneida County, N.Y., he studied for the bar but turned to evangelism after an emotional religious conversion in 1821. He was ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1824 and shortly afterwards launched an eight-year revival campaign that carried him through New York, New England, and the mid-Atlantic states. Named pastor of the Second Free Presbyterian Church in New York City in 1832, he resigned two years later to become pastor of Broadway Tabernacle, a Congregational church organized especially for him. In 1835 he became professor of theology at Oberlin College in Ohio, beginning an association that would continue for the rest of his life. Two years later he accepted the pastorship of the First Congregational Church in Oberlin. He was president of Oberlin College from 1851--66. His Memoirs, about his lifetime of teaching, preaching, and evangelism, appeared the year after his death. Gladden, (Solomon) Washington 1836 -- 1918 Protestant religious leader; born in Pottsgrove, Pa. Raised on an uncle's farm in New York state, he graduated from Williams College (1859), served several New England Congregational churches and was religious editor for The Independent (1871--75). In 1882 he accepted the pastorship of the First Congregational Church of Columbus, Ohio, where he remained for the rest of his life. An advocate of the "social gospel," he believed enlightened Christians could ameliorate social and economic ills. He was the author of more than 40 books, including an autobiography, Recollections (1909). Moody, Dwight Lyman 1837 -- 1899 Protestant evangelist; born in Northfield, Mass. A shoe salesman in Chicago, he established a church school for slum children in 1858; two years later he decided to devote his life to evangelism. Never ordained, he had a wide influence as a preacher of a simple, conservative, and personal Christianity. With a colleague, hymnist Ira David Sankey, he completed two successful tours of Britain, and they often worked together in America. He founded the Northfield Seminary (1879), the Mount Hermon School (1881), and the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago (1889). John XXIII (, originally Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli) 1881 -- 1963 Pope (1958--63), born in Sotto il Monte, Italy. He was ordained in 1904, served as a chaplain in World War 1, and was subsequently apostolic delegate to Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece. Patriarch of Venice in 1953, he was elected pope in 1958 on the 12th ballot. He convened the Second Vatican Council to renew the religious life of the Church and to modernize its teachings, disciplines, and organization, with the aim of eventual unity of all Christians. Dennis J. Bennett 1917 –1991 Father Dennis Bennett was the Episcopal priest who verbally fired the shot that was heard around the world. On April 3, 1960, he spoke from his pulpit at the thriving St. Mark's Church, Van Nuys, California and shared with his congregation that he had received a personal Pentecost or Baptism with the Spirit. And as with the original Pentecost in Jerusalem nearly 2,000 years before, scripture says, "They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance" (Acts 2:4 NKJV). Now Dennis shared that he, and then many of his congregation, had this empowering experience. This was his flock and he wanted them to know that God had more in store for them, so he told them, to his own disadvantage. As the saying goes, "Sometimes the devil comes to Church on Sunday." Truly the warfare between good and evil began at those three Sunday morning services, escalating as the morning went on. Dennis was asked to resign by some of the vestry and not being used to such heavy spiritual battles at church, he decided that his experience was too valuable to fight over. As Rector and chief pastor he did not have to resign, but decided it was the best action to take. After this explosion in his church the story was carried in the local newspapers, various wire services picked it up, and the news swept the country. Dennis was not a person who sought to be in the public eye and in fact did not enjoy it. But there was no way to escape it, especially when Time carried the story, and then Newsweek. A short time later Dennis left Van Nuys to pastor a church in the Northwest, St. Luke's in Seattle. He, his wife and three children accepted the call and began a new life with a new loving congregation. A few years later, in 1963, his beloved wife, Elberta, died. He dedicated his book Nine O'clock in the Morning to her, calling her "'One of God's great ones' and a true soldier of Christ." Being an early leader in what became known as the Charismatic Renewal was not an easy task and certainly not a contest one would enter if one wanted to be voted most politically correct. But Dennis set his heart on living for God and did that to the last day of his life, November 1, 1991.